


Haven from the Summer Storm

by apologija, Grimalkin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Art, Depression, Humanstuck, Illustrated, Illustrations, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Second Person, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Propoganda, Schizophrenia, Swearing, media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apologija/pseuds/apologija, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimalkin/pseuds/Grimalkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not many people understand what being best friends with Gamzee means. Even less seem to understand that there's more to him than schizophrenia.</p><p>Written, but not selected, for the HSWC round one: Propaganda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haven from the Summer Storm

You lean yourself down on the counter to watch that unmoving rock huddling down on the couch, watching yet another round of sensationalism in action. Your heart fucking breaks for the guy, but he’s being so difficult right now it’s easy to forget that.

That newswoman with the nose job that looked like it was done in a back alley of a tattoo parlor at midnight with a hammer is on again, and the story of the week remains the star of the show. This wouldn’t have happened if the the city didn’t have the gall to be impossibly dull for the rest of the week for the first time in the past decade. Where’s a stabbing when you need one?

“Now,” she chirps, and you are overcome with the compulsion to hurl a steak knife at the screen, “I’m sure you all recall our top story of the week when a peaceful protest nearly turned violent when a young man wearing clown facepaint, later identified as twenty-two year old Gamzee Makara, caused a disturbance and assaulted an officer during a political rally we were reporting on at the time of the attack.”

The video clip they’d been playing non-stop for the past five days rolled again, and you see him huddle further into the couch as he mumbled something.

“This has sparked much debate over the last few days as Mr. Makara, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, raises questions about how safe the streets are. Expert Dr. Heisenburg gave us his opinion last night.”

A blue screen fades into view, which was a relief considering the reporter’s face would be hidden and children everywhere could stop crying for a moment, and the face of some coke-bottled quack with crooked teeth was at the top.

“Quote: ‘It is very likely that he was either not receiving treatment or taking the proper medication at the time of the assault. Let this be a lesson to everyone of how important it is to adhere to the proper treatments of mental illnesses.’” The blue screen faded away and it was back to the reporter, and Gamzee’s mumbles only seemed to intensify.

“So we went on the streets asking citizens if they think something should be changed about the current mental health system, and if they felt safe knowing someone could possibly be on the brink of an explosive and violent episode.” In place of the reporter there was now some braying cow going on about how she doesn’t feel like the streets are safe for her children anymore.

You roll your eyes. This is probably the most milked out story on television by now, you’d think the scavengers would have moved on to a different topic but they were intent on mutilating the carcass of the story seemingly only to make Gamzee feel worse.

More people get their chance to talk incessantly about their opinion of the ‘big story on everyone’s mind’, ranging from bleeding hearts to unscrupulous assholes with the understanding and empathy of a particularly stupid goldfish. All the while Gamzee seems as if he’s starting a mumbled war chant ready to spring at the screen like a feral cat with every strain of rabies on god’s green earth.

It only got through 5 people, most of them negative with only one decent individual, before you decide that you’ve had about enough of this bullshit and heaved yourself up off the counter. You don’t care if he’s the one who keeps turning on the news, this cannot be healthy for him in any way, shape, or form. You’ll be fucked on a rusty pike until the last of the atoms fade from the cosmos if you’re gonna let him keep up this self-deprecating game of watching himself get torn apart by a den of lions with facelifts.

You march right over there, leaning over the couch to get a proper choke hold on the remote so you could press the power button with more contempt than any single finger has acted with before this moment. Gamzee remains unflinching, but the mumbles die down from their unfocused ramblings, rendered entirely unintelligible little sounds that are just slightly pained.

He’s been like this ever since you bailed him out and he saw himself on the evening news, which is probably the most cataclysmic thing to happen to him since he was sent to juvie. That was what, like six years ago or something?

In fact this was probably worse for him since being sentenced to juvie was just another shit-encrusted corridor of the infinite labyrinth of feces his life was. Right now it must feel like he just crashed and burned into a frigate after flying high for months on end, and the resulting collision resulted a knee-jerk thermonuclear war.

You shuffle over closer to him and lean over the back ot the couch so you can get a half-decent look at him. He looks like that special kind of out of it that you’ve grown to understand instantly, his schizophrenia and paranoia are giving him a gratuitous mental torture porn three way, and he’s still mumbling to himself with fluctuating pitch and urgency, as if trying to argue a point he’d been cornered into. It’s nothing short of a picnic in a field of lava when this happens, and as much as you’d rather give him the chance to work his shit out, the last five days have been the same story on repeat and it’s about time you started helping beyond just calming him down when he starts actually having a freak-out.

You sigh deeply. “You know how I said that I was going to start letting you try to deal with your mental steak knife funhouse cacophony of disembodied conversations so long as it’s not too bad?” He doesn’t react and you furrow your brow just a shade deeper than your default scowl. “Well to be honest you should be taking shots at me for trying to apply the notion to this, because I’m actually just that brain dead that I think you can somehow worm yourself out of your head when you’re being slandered across the news by a bunch of quacks and botox-stuffed attention whores.” Still nothing. He’s not paying attention is he?

Your hand darts in front of his face and you snap several times. He damn near launches himself out of his skin into the troposphere.

“Gamzee are you listening to my poetic whimperings of ineptitude? I work hard on that shit to make it as pathetic and florid as possible.”

He stares at you like he’s blitzed out of his skull and he’s a disheveled, unshaven (which amounts to him basically having a straggly half-beard) mess. He seems to catch focus on you and his shoulders sag a little, which better be out of relief.

“Sorry brother,” he mumbles one of those half-sincere apologies, turning back to focus on the blank TV screen. “This rudeness is just layin’ into me something motherfuckin’ harsh.” He pauses, and you glare into him with scrutiny.

“Ain’t a single... motherfucking right to be all crucifying motherfuckers, getting a motherfucker searching around them like they done got all motherfuckin’ eyes lookin’ down at you, motherfucking JUDGIN’ like you ain’t ever been looked on with such motherfuckin’ cruelty in time before. Lucky those motherfucks ain’t gotta be dealing with ME brother because I can get to be showing them the crazies they’re hunting at in me, I can MOTHERFUCKING SHOW THEM.” He turns to you, wide-eyed like a cornered animal, mouth twisted into an angry snarl. “CAUSE TO THEM, THAT’S ALL WHAT I MOTHERFUCKING GOT COMPROMISING-”

“GAMZEE.” You shout, just a little, and he recoils, and internally you flinch just a bit in spite of yourself; you really don’t like yelling at him when he’s having a rough time but you’ve come to know when he starts raving he kinda needs a strong hand.

“Calm down, I _know_. This is baseless scapegoat propaganda, which is just another reason why you shouldn’t concern yourself with watching the character effigy burning that’s been the top news, even though no one in this city actually gives half a cancerous, pulsating fuck.”

He looks down, pouting surly, like a child being reprimanded for something he’s certain wasn’t wrong, you choke down your pity for him for a moment because he needs a hefty dose of reality right now.

“No one, and I repeat, no one, except for particularly shrill mothers who aren’t too busy spending their time in umbilical cord reattachment surgery research, really gives a fresh fuck about what happened. Everyone in this city has some stupid handwave opinion on the mentally ill because they have _not a single neuron_ of understanding, let alone actual experience, and this special brand of ignorance isn’t something this really affected. There’s like, a handful of people in Portland who are pulling down their pants and singing a canned speech with their whistling asshole when asked about this.” You throw your hands up in frustration. You’ve seen enough of the stupidity that exists in your psychology class alone to realize that the amount of people who are actually intelligent in Portland is dangerously small; the fact that Kanaya, Sollux, and Terezi are all out of state for their college endeavors probably cut the number in half.

You scratch your head in frustration and you can nearly feel the migraine breathing down your back and readying an array of power tools to drill into your skull when you realize Gamzee is completely spacing out, probably stuck in his head, not listening to a word you say. Again. Goddamn you’re waist deep on this one.

You grab him by the shoulder and shake him just a bit and he perks up.

“I know it’s hard to focus right now,” you say, a little bit more gentle this time, almost like a decent human being, “but I’m actually saying something mildly important.”

He hunches over again, but it’s more sheepish this time.

“Sorry bro,” he mumbles. The fuck are you going to do with him? You sigh, and careful to keep your hand on his shoulder, you hop over the back of the couch and settle in next to him. God he looks miserable, this might even be worse than a thermonuclear war in terms of misery.

You give his shoulder a rub with your hand for a little while before you speak again, and he seems to appreciate that; just a little.

“I know that the thought of a handful of reporters squirming out of every crevice of the hallway the second you step out the door is enough to make just about anyone spew a vomit fountain, but you can’t just stay holed up in the apartment with the shades drawn for the rest of your life. I’m _not_ going to let you play out your Quasimodo style self segregation from the rest of the populace, not when you’ve finally started to act something that almost resembles a spirited effort at faking being normal. We’ve worked too fucking hard for everything to drop into a gaping chasm of shit because some network head decided your story was the easiest to milk and demonize.”

He looks at you, a little uncertain and still not entirely all there, but it’s an improvement.

“Like, dude, I know this was awful for you but, as I’ve explained ad nauseum in the past, you can’t just lock out the world and pretend like everything can still be a fucked up, saccharine, zebra cake festival in your own little bubble.” He _knows_ his escapist shit is a problem and you’ve talked to him about it before, but right now he seems determined to make it difficult for you to feel terrible for him instead of being aggravated at his unwillingness to help himself, and he just looks away.

Just before you manage to eject a square mile of raw sewage from your mouth and royally fuck everything over by saying something that would probably ruin everything and make it worse, he totally saves your ass by speaking up.

“But it’s my motherfucking face, bro! Gone and had it all smeared down and motherfucking out, all by some wretched motherrfuckers what are getting their atrocious verbiage assaultin’ me in manners _fucked unruly_ like what you can’t even make to believe. How the motherfuck’s a brother supposed to be all up and dragging hisself from what hole he’s stuck in when his visage got itself motherfucking _mauled_ somethin’ vicious.” You could have sworn that he could pass for a kicked stray right about now. You sigh.

“Gamzee, again, I really don’t think anyone who can actually devote the brain cells to formulate an opinion that I wouldn’t describe as slack-jawed at best-- a rare occurrence, I admit-- actually cares about this.”

“But they got at my motherfucking _face_ man. Motherfuckers got their knowings on that there’s something what ain’t right in my nug before I can be like to explain shit at them in ways hashed suitable to be getting a shitbit of positivity motherfucking _forged_ up in here.” He’s looking at you again, kinda desperate and needy, as if he’s hoping for you to pull out some other reality where this has no chance of happening that he can hide away in.

“Gamzee I already--” But he’s not done.

“How can you be getting yourself motherfuckin _sure_ that some chill motherfuck ain’t just gonna be knowing at how my head’s all fucked and be getting their wicked avoidance on at me, huh? How’s a brother supposed to be getting any motherfuckin’ flavor of congenial when he’s looking all teeth and mother fucking violence on the tube, with no motherfuckin’ chance what to be guarding his _name_?” He grits his teeth for a moment and stands up, glaring at you with accusation in his eyes. “How the _motherfuck_ am I all supposed to be getting my motherfucking chill on when I ain’t even able to be crackin’ the motherfucking door without all them _eyes_ casting rude judgement on the beast what they know is compromising my husk.

“They’re all there bro, they ain’t never been gone, _always motherfucking been_. Sometimes they get forgot but they ain’t _never_ been motherfucking _gone_. Can’t be taking a single motherfucking breath without them sights set harsh and uncouth at a brother, ‘til he ain’t got nothing left but shit to be brought in manners _CRUEL AND UNUSUAL_. They ain’t never to be having _their_ shit slammed the motherfuck down and made satisfied ‘til I ain’t got no face or no name, or motherfuckin’ mouth or _mother fucking_ hands, until the all of the all of me ain’t nothing but just a _SACK OF MOTHER FUCKING POISON_ what they can’t be getting their accept on at without--” He make an unpleasant little cut off sound and starts looking over his shoulder.

You’re just a little taken aback. He’s worse than he’s been for weeks and you’d gotten a little complacent with his mental serenity, but now he was currently walking a tightrope across a chasm of grisly sights and sounds and _someone_ has to tell him to get back off the circus gear and chill out. You stand to meet him.

“Gamzee.” He doesn’t pay attention, still looking over his shoulder, and he even does a quick spin around, looking filled with panic like something’s coming to get him. You grab him by the arm and he flinches before he can focus on you.

“Gamzee listen. I know this is an event that is matched only by the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding through our living room and trashing the joint before they kick off the armageddon party galore with severed head balloons and intestine confetti, but I know you enough to know you’re about to dive head-first into a pool of broken glass and garbled sanity, and you need to pull out of this tailspin before you have another episode.” You’re firm, but calm, in that special way that makes something in your head go ‘ding’ and you know that you just said something right. You are mentally rewarded with a pat on the back.

He stares at you, searching and frantic. Whatever he saw in your face seemed to be the right answer because he snatches you into a hug and holds on to you like you are necessary for him to breathe, burying his face in your hair, shaking like the last leaf of autumn and breathing heavily. You return the hug, patting his back a little and letting him linger a few seconds before you pull him back down onto the couch where he can sit.

“Listen,” you say after about a minute of letting him cling. “This is horrible. I’m not going to pretend like it isn’t because it is quite possibly the worst thing that’s happened to you since you were let out of juvie-- No, this is doubtlessly the single worst thing to befall you _since_ juvie. This is shit. Everything is shit. The whole concept of you of all people being the face of a demonization campaign is pants-shittingly laughable to the point where people should be achieving space travel from the force of their feces being evacuated.” He sorta sniffs a bit and nods.

You pull away from the hug a little so you can look at him, his eyes are a little red but he’s not crying, which makes a tiny little well of pride spring in your gut for just a half-second.

“But, you can’t let this get the better of you. You like being a defiant asshole in the face of being told what to do with your life, and cutting yourself off from the rest of the planet is exactly what those assholes who are running this smear campaign to double their ratings to a grand total of ten people actually want.”

“Sorry bro.”

“Shut up you clown-lusting sugar dipstick, it’s not your fucking fault.”

He smiles down at you, and you smile back in your own kinda half-smile for a good quarter of a second, a record for the ages, truly, before your face sours again.

“Thanks man, can’t rightfully be spilling no noise at how I ain’t never to be getting by without you proper,” he says, looking better than he has in days.

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” You break the hug and pull out your cell phone. Fuck, you two need to eat lunch. You glance back up at him and he’s looking a bit uncertain again. “You need to get out of the house.”

His face twists around like the thought is making him sick and he scratches the back of his neck.

“Uhhh... do I gotta be doing that shit _now_ brother? Can’t I be waitin’ for the motherfuckin’ heat to get itself calmed solid like?”

“You’ll be fine,” you grunt, putting your phone back in your pocket. “I’ll be with you and I promise if things start taking a turn for fuckall we can go back home. And If someone starts giving you shit then _I’ll_ be the one to assault them so the news can have a story on the dangers of degenerate Indians with ocular albinism to accompany yours, then we can be equally defiant pariahs of the city and scare off death row inmates with the mere utterance of our names.” He actually chuckles a little bit at that.

“Go into the bathroom and clear the rainforest from your face, I don’t give a fuck if there’s a government sanction on rainforest protection or whatever; cut it, burn it, anything just get it off your face. We’re going to Voodoo Donuts and picking up a dozen.”

“Aww shit, no foolin’?” He looks like you just presented him a gold bar.

“Of course I’m not fooling. Now get rid of that fucking beard before I start plucking out the hairs one by one. We have to get there before someone crushes and snorts all the Bacon Maples and Raspberry Romeos.” He gives you a shit eating grin and dashes off to the bathroom.

You think he’s gonna be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Art by Apologija, and she edited.


End file.
